Friday, November 4, 2016

I may have been a little pessimistic about night-training kidlet. To be fair, the past two years has been rather hellish in the potty department: kidlet learned to pee in the potty relatively quickly, though perfecting the timing took a while. But for some reason he was terrified of pooping in the toilet. And nothing, not ice cream, not promises of new toy cars, not even a promised visit to his cousins, could convince him to poop in the toilet. For more than a year, the situation was that he was okay for the day, but literally five minutes after we put him in a diaper (for bed) he'd poop in it.

Well, the pooping-in-the-toilet issue resolved itself in a most spectacular fashion a few weeks ago. It would be difficult to convey the degree of sturm und drang that happened that afternoon, but suffice it to say that more than one of us was in tears before it was over. But it happened - and he began using the toilets for both numbers one and two after that, quite willingly, so I suppose the overall experience didn't scar him for life.

After that I waited a few weeks before starting night-training; it made sense to wait a while before making more drama with respect to wet beds. Plus I needed some time to gather the supplies: extra el-cheapo sheets (thanks, IKEA!), and plastic mattress protectors to lay down underneath the sheets. I bought 105 puppy pads - at 20 cents apiece, it was a steal over the 1.07 euros that the Jumbo charges for the exact same thing. I was going to be Prepared, damn it - I had his bed made up in 3 layers (sheet, puppy pads, sheet, puppy pads, sheet, puppy pads), totally ready for the moment he'd wake up crying that his bed was wet and I'd just strip off the sheets, change his pants, and tuck him right back in. I'd been reminding him that he needed to start waking up to go to the bathroom for weeks. I even put off doing the whites in case he wet the bed the first few nights.

And what happened? Exactly nothing. He went to bed, in underwear and pajamas, and then woke up the next morning as happy and cheerful as ever. Not a drop of pee in the bed.

It's been that way for two days, now. I may need to find something else to do with 99 puppy pads....